


Down and Across

by ShutUpandPull



Category: Castle
Genre: Caskett, F/M, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 02:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6546331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShutUpandPull/pseuds/ShutUpandPull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out of my season 5-6 archive: It's Sunday morning. Kate's focused on the task at hand - Castle definitely isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down and Across

Rick studied Kate with covert amusement, her furrowed brow a result of the complex but deliberate arrangement of tiny boxes on the page before her, her bare morning lips pursed in abject frustration. He gently shifted his position and relaxed further into the down pillows at his back with a grin, her body compensating for his movement but never breaking from the task at hand. Her hair hung loose, to his added pleasure, its earlier mechanism of restraint banished to her wrist, and it faintly tickled at the paper as her breath shifted it back and forth. He held his own copy of the puzzle assertively in hand, a cover, of course, as his entire focus was directed definitively elsewhere – at her, as always. 

Propped up on her elbows within the angle formed of his bare legs, Kate’s pillow served as a makeshift desktop and Rick’s midsection its support as she attacked with fixated attention each clue in Sunday’s most-challenging-of-the-week crossword puzzle. He wasn’t certain whether or not she was conscious of it, but she always bit at her lip when she concentrated that deeply, and that morning was no exception, the quirk again eliciting a relentless twinge of want. It truly wasn’t a fair fight, he thought, as his eyes drank her in; their bet was in place and he was guaranteed to lose. How in the hell was he supposed to function with the level of intelligence and command required of him? How in the hell was he supposed to finish the puzzle at all, let alone first? It simply wasn’t possible. Not when the lip came into play.

“You know I can feel you, right?” Kate asked into the hush of their Sunday morning world, her eyes never straying from the page. “You have to stop staring at me, Castle. I can’t concentrate.” 

Utterly caught, Rick cleared the awkward from his throat and pushed his hand through his tussled hair to buy himself a few extra seconds of time to think. “But you’re doing that thing and I…” he started then hastily backpedaled. “Never mind, I’ll stop.” Maybe she hadn’t heard or wouldn’t ask or didn’t care about the words he’d so abruptly swallowed.

Kate chewed absentmindedly at the end of her pen – yes, she did the Sunday _New York Times_ crossword in pen, the mark of a true hero, Rick marveled – and mumbled something profane about the puzzle’s author before finally looking up at him. “And what _thing_ would that be exactly?” she said.

Of course she’d heard.

He desperately needed his writer brain in that moment. But it failed him miserably. “Um, just, you know, being you. That’s the only thing I meant.” He fought mightily against his own eye-roll of disappointment as he took clear note of hers. She made no similar attempt to suppress it.

“Hey, wait,” she exclaimed as she looked him over, “Castle, you don’t…do you even have a pen?” she said, already sure of the answer. “You know, it’s really gonna take all the fun out of beating you at this thing if you don’t even try,” she huffed.

Rick sat upright and seized the pen from her hand, tossed it aimlessly across the room. The pillow beneath her forearms was next to go, taking her copy of the paper with it. With the one boundary between them gone, he grabbed her beneath each arm and flipped her onto her back on the unoccupied side of the bed. She exhaled a sigh of surprise and confusion. And then she grinned, modest but not imperceptible – not to him.

“What the hell was that about, Castle?” Kate grumbled, overcompensating with hyperbolic displeasure in order to conceal her complete and total _lack_ of displeasure at the sudden turn of events. He hadn’t yet earned that satisfaction.

Rick watched her eyes watch him, waiting for an answer. His fingertip traveled slowly over the clavicle left exposed by her off-shoulder tee and climbed up her neck, coming to soft rest against her lips. He traced a line across her mouth and over her chin, back down along her neck, and across her shoulder, in pattern of the puzzle he’d just energetically discarded.

“So,” he began before a notable pause, “you think I’m not trying?” He inched forward and met her middle with his own. “I’ll have you know, Detective, that I’m trying harder than you can possibly imagine. Do you have any idea what it’s like? Do you have any idea what it’s like to have you in this bed like this, to be this close to you while your brain works like that, to watch your face as it puts on that exquisite show, to try and keep still when your mouth--” He had to stop to compose himself, to end the ramble before it got totally away from him. “I assure you, trying is all I _can_ do and were it not for you and all of your, well, _you_ , I’d beat the pants off you at this thing and you know it.”

Kate couldn’t help but chuckle aloud at his arrogance which, as it turned out, didn’t always irritate her. In fact, on occasion it did quite the opposite. “Well, I suppose it’s unfortunate for you then that I plan on being around with all of my _me_ for the remainder of our Sundays, huh?” She pushed up onto her elbows, her lips all but pressed against his ear. “Besides, I think I’ve made it quite clear how little I enjoy wearing pants when I’m around you anyway, Writer Man.” Rick kissed her hard and fast and then pulled back just as quickly, leaving her lips craving more. “Wait,” she pleaded breathlessly, “where are you going?”

His eyes locked onto hers as he moved down her body. “Well, I thought in the spirit of my unfinished crossword, I’d start with down. And, it is the Sunday puzzle after all so it could take me a long, long time.” He wagged his eyebrows wickedly. “But don’t worry, Detective, there will be plenty of time for working across later.”

 

 

 


End file.
